


The Garden at Night

by cappucinohanzo



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Beginnings, Brotherhood, Gen, Reunions, Sparring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-18
Updated: 2018-01-18
Packaged: 2019-03-06 10:41:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13409532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cappucinohanzo/pseuds/cappucinohanzo
Summary: Even now, Hanzo remains undecided about their future.





	The Garden at Night

* * *

 

He calls up the years of meditation, calm; the balance within him shivers, then quakes, as the turmoil within him fights against him steadying his feet upon the ground. Through the visor, Genji’s eyes open to map the area; a temple garden, of all places. They used to come here as children. He knew that if there would be a place that Hanzo would meet him again, this would be it. This is where they’ve met since that night in Hanamura, like two untrusting cats circling one another, for longer and longer each time. It’s past sunset - a time when the gates are closed, the monks are asleep, and a ninja can climb the wall without attracting attention. Blending to the scenery. For what? For a visit to the koi pond.

“You are here again, brother,” he says, his voice almost cheerful, almost - cocky? Is that the tone returning to him after all these years?

Hanzo scoffs. He looks away, kicks at a smooth stone on the path, then seems to still: hesitantly, he moves the stone back to where it used to be with the steel-glimmering front of his foot, as if afraid he’s disrupted a balance that should be left untouched. A softness burrows itself into the tone of Genji’s smile, hidden beneath his mask, and he runs his fingers over his face to detach the part covering his eyes. Without the visor, the landscape seems very dark; he’s not used to that kind of darkness anymore. In Nepal, the sky with its stars and its moon was always closer than here in Tokyo where the lights of the city scare away the lights of the natural night. He catches Hanzo’s eyes glancing over into his, but it is a brief gaze, no more than a swift stolen second.

“I told you I’d have to fight you again if you came here undecided.”

“I came here to fight,” Hanzo tells him, his eyes upon the ground again.  
There’s a line in the sand where the stone rolled from its place. His shoe is smoothing over it, as if to erase the past.

“So I see.”  
Genji steps ahead, his fingers bending around the familiar - safe - handle of his katana. It slides out effortlessly, the voice of its steel playing its gentle threat against the walled-in silence of the garden.  
“Are you prepared to take me on then, brother?”

He sees the crooked smile just flashing over Hanzo’s lips, and like a lightning’s strike, it alerts all of his senses; in no more than a split second, he’s dodging an arrow splitting the air. His feet leave the ground and he can feel the night air in the flattened, oil-pressed strands of hair poking over his face from beneath the mask; the day’s heat has left him in need of this breeze, and later, not that much later, a good, long shower. For now, his body effortlessly bounces away from Hanzo’s reach: the older brother watches him, turning on his heels, until his feet land again and the katana strikes at him.

Deadly weapons. That’s how they always sparred. The wooden ones were taken away when Genji was six years old - a year later, he was shooting guns. Of course, the guns didn’t stick, but the smell of them did, the smell of sharp, burning air and the promise of death lingering in the absence of the soon faded sound. Hanzo’s slower than he used to be, or Genji simply that much faster, but he dodges the blow with ease, only moving one foot away from the strike. He cocks his head, eyes squinted, and lifts his bow again. Then he vanishes. He’s good at it. He always was. Genji blinks at the darkness, auditory channels wired to hell and back to trail the sound of his brother’s footsteps in the bushes along the pond’s edge, circling a cherry tree - climbing it. He breathes in silently, resumes stance, and lifts his blade. The arrow comes with a whistle, and it collides with the sword, changing course; Genji can hear it strike the tree, and the soft chuckle from his brother as Hanzo pulls it out.

“Can you see me, Genji?”

“No, I cannot.”

“Then you are a better shot than I anticipated.”

“Is it a shot if I only redirect yours?”

“Is it?”

The next arrow lands where Genji used to stand. Now he’s not there. His heart is pounding as he scales the tree, the texture covering the bottoms of his feet perfectly stabilizing his each movement, until he can reach out his hand and grasp a fistful of cloth in it. He pushes Hanzo against the branch, leaning over - kneeling, really, one leg stretched to full length and the other pressing against his stomach with his brother’s back rubbing into the tree - and even in the dark, he sees the glare that Hanzo aims at him.

“I win again. What do you say to that, Hanzo?”

Hanzo’s fingernails scrape at the back of his hand as he wrestles it out of his clothes. Genji chuckles, drawing away. His system’s alarms pound at his pressure sensors - adrenaline too high, shock systems activated, cooling systems at overload; he tells them to shut up. He’s not in any danger, he tells himself, realising that he almost believes that now. It is a stranger to him here, the sensation that confidence brings with it. Budding trust; Hanzo pulls up beneath him, flings his body over the branch and lands softly on the grass below. Genji doesn’t drop down. He watches the other like an owl on a perch, head tilted, eyes sharp.

“How many times will we repeat this after tonight, brother, before you have made up your mind?” he asks. “I do not wish for another ritual to replace the one I hope you will leave behind.”

“Then what do you wish for?” Hanzo asks him, his eyes elsewhere again.

“For us to walk this path onwards together, side by side, as we were meant to do.”

“You ask for a miracle.”

“Perhaps. It is a small one, however, if you wish to think of it as such. I would rather call it a sacrifice; the path I speak of will not be easy, least of all for us.”

Hanzo glances at him again, and this time, something in Genji stills him there, and he watches him, the anxious tension in his body falling apart the longer he looks. Finally, a sigh breaks it apart completely: his shoulders fall and his posture relaxes, and the sharpness in his eyes softens. He says nothing, but Genji nods regardless, and he lets his body off the branch, landing with a soft thud beside the other man. He stands up in a collected, practiced manner that leaves him standing above his brother, and Hanzo faces him, a stern kind of sadness carved into his features. Genji’s heart picks up before his hand does, alarming his systems again as if to a threat but he ignores them, and he places it over Hanzo’s shoulder like he did that night in Hanamura, and he smiles again, even though Hanzo still can’t see it.

“Let us walk a physical path tonight, brother. An easy beginning.”

“Where to?”

“The city. It has been long since I could last walk these streets. I wish to see what my home has come to. Would you show me around?”

A soft, bark-like chuckle rises and dies in Hanzo’s throat. He nods, finally hanging his weapon back around his body.

“Of course,” he says.

They leave the gardens behind.


End file.
